Fossils of human ancestors are rare. You could pile all the ones that scientists have found in the back of a pickup truck.

But a remarkable site in Georgia, in the former Soviet Union, has produced a rich group of bones dating back almost 2 million years — and the discovery is shaking the family tree of human evolution.

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..... the team found as much variation among modern humans and among chimps and among the Dmanisi Five as there is among those ancient African fossils that have long been thought to be different species.

This is the excellent thing about science, it always pushes on to find truth no matter in which direction it leads.

This is the excellent thing about science, it always pushes on to find truth no matter in which direction it leads.

Absolutely. Here is a genuine controversy in human evolution: not whether it happened, but over the details of when and how it did. Were there many "cousin" species that competed and perhaps interbred to become what we'd recognize as anatomically and genetically human, or was (as this find suggests, if I'm understanding the suggested hypothesis in the article) there a single species with a great deal of diversity? Either way, a fascinating glimpse at the very roots of humanity.

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Live a good life... If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid.--Marcus Aurelius

This is quite strange. I saw a BBC News item on this on an RSS feed, read it, and decided, from the final paragraphs, that it was probably misleading. I then saw your post and tried to find it again. This time Google came up with a report from 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2645183.stm

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Dato Lortkipanidze thought he recognised Homo habilis, a hominid with a close resemblance to an ape.

But what was he doing in Georgia? The theory had always been that the migration out of Africa had only happened with the evolution of big brains and the development of the tools and hunting skills to make the exodus possible. [...] Another unusual aspect of the Dmanisi find is that it was discovered in the same layer of sediment as other hominids with substantially larger brains - Homo erectus.

Mr Lortkipanidze suggests the variation may force us to rethink the definition Homo.

Chris Stringer at the Natural History Museum in London said that the team had made an excellent case "that this remarkable new skull, with its huge jawbone", was part of the natural variation of the Dmanisi population.

But he said he was doubtful that all of the early Homo fossils can be "lumped into an evolving H.erectus lineage".

"Only H.Erectus survives and becomes successful but at the origin nature was experimenting with how to evolve humans in terms of increasing brain size," Prof Stringer told BBC News.

"Creatures were starting to use tools and eat meat, and this drove evolution, but I think it also drove diversity. The Dmanisi group is an example of the successful species that came out of that and then carried on to spread around the old world."

I'm not sure what is happening here, but the BBC have a habit of saving money by digging out archive material and using it as an article of "latest news". This then is picked up by other broadcasters and repeated as if it were breaking-news.

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

Here's the site. Too bad the entire article is not free for the public - I understand, but..... Anyway, I wonder if these scientists get this info and argue and hash it over for months before ..... what? How do they decide publishing and credit or further research before publishing, etc. You'd like to think they are more into the research than who gets the scoop, but that wouldn't be very "human natured" of them, would it?

TMaybe they have been unearthing and cleaning the newest findings this long?

Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

It is not surprising that some of the different types of early human were interbreeding and producing mixed forms. Modern human DNA also contains DNA from different pre human types. The article goes too far in saying that human species did not branch off. There were others who did not interbreed and who went their own way for example the Flores dwarfs.

I feel sorry for the people who got an A on their evolution papers in high School or college. Looks like they didn't have this knowledge.

Better start rewriting those textbooks once again with the New Truth.

Indeed. Think how much better off we would be if we had just stayed in our huts, and passed on stories of bronze-aged nomads breeding striped sheep by placing them in front of striped poles, curing disease by casting out demons, watching the universe revolve around our unshakable pillard disk, and pleasing our god with offerings of burnt animal flesh.

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There is no opinion so absurd that a preacher could not express it.-- Bernie Katz

I feel sorry for the people who got an A on their evolution papers in high School or college. Looks like they didn't have this knowledge.

Better start rewriting those textbooks once again with the New Truth.

It is by the accumulation of independently verifiable facts, measurements and observed processes that science can always improve its theories. Even when theories are proven wrong, it is not because there are fewer reliable facts, but more, and the facts are always accumulating. Whatever the scientific theories are, they are the BEST explanation at the time. Anyone who cannot change their mind will be left behind.